Calling it a "schtick" (the Afro-futurist Egyptian thing) is missing the point and you will meet people who will take offense to this.

Anyway, Mr. Tchicai just passed away unfortunately, but I was recently turned onto to the New York Art Quartet. I got to do a reference mix of a live performance of theirs for a documentary. Man, that was an interesting multitrack to listen to!

Zygomorph wrote:Calling it a "schtick" (the Afro-futurist Egyptian thing) is missing the point

Can you explain "the point" then, as you see it? I get that there's more to it than just schtick, that there's an element of myth-making and creative spirituality, but it's also very campy and over-the-top and not meant to be taken as literally true. I'd like to hear your take on it.

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Nice to read back thru this, feel like I know a little more this time around.
Hopefully it's not too off topic, as he's been mentioned, but can anyone steer me to some good Pharoah Sanders? Discovered his and Coltrane's "Live in Seattle" and "Om" last fall. The guy at the record store was reluctant to sell it - "oh man, that thing made me really nervous. I'm not sure you're gonna like it." Think I kind of freaked him out when I came back asking for more.

Karma is where i would start, Thembi is also excellent. Check out Lonnie Liston Smith and the Cosmic Echoes, its Pharoah's keyboard player who left the group and does the same thing he did with other musicians. Astral Traveling and Cosmic Funk are both excellent.

Zygomorph wrote:Calling it a "schtick" (the Afro-futurist Egyptian thing) is missing the point

Can you explain "the point" then, as you see it? I get that there's more to it than just schtick, that there's an element of myth-making and creative spirituality, but it's also very campy and over-the-top and not meant to be taken as literally true. I'd like to hear your take on it.

Here's a page from the first chapter of Graham Lock's book on Anthony Braxton (Forces in Motion) concerning where Ra is coming from:

I've read Forces in Motion. I own a copy. I'm a big fan of Braxton's music, and I met him when he was a visiting artist when I was in grad school. He's close friends with one of my professors at the time.

But, yeah, the shtick thing... there's an audio recording of one of Sun Ra's lectures from when he was teaching a course (at UC Berkeley, IIRC) recorded surreptitiously (he didn't allow recording) where he essentially admits that he doesn't care whether what he says is factual, what matters to him is the political effect of it (myth vs. reality, or as he put it on one record: "if you are not a myth, whose reality are you? If you are not a reality, whose myth are you?"). It was a form of propaganda, along the same lines as "alternative facts" today, though in service of a very different ideology, and a more indirect presentation (i.e. creating an entertaining "myth" vs. outright lying (the current administration)).

I love Braxton's and Sun Ra's music, but 1. DNA from ancient mummies show that the ancient Egyptians are closely related to the pre-Arab conquest component of the modern Egyptian population, and distinct from the sub-Saharan population. 2. The "mystery school" teachings have a very tenuous connection to ancient Egypt. They're mostly the invention of neo-Platonists, Theosophists, Masons, Rosicrucians and others from the post-Enlightenment, romantic era. A lot of their ideas are variations on certain works by Plato (Timaeus, Theatetus) and medieval Kabbalistic texts (Sepher Yezirah, Zohar).

Of course none of that has anything to do with space people, regardless. And while there may be some kind of silicon-based life on Titan, there ain't a damn thing alive on Saturn.

Africans and black people everywhere have lots to be proud of without having to make up false histories and mythologies involving ancient Egyptians and Saturnians. And the music speaks for itself.

get a hammered sound from guitar or bass! http://www.stringhammer.com
hand-made version to raise money for manufacturing... kind of like kickstarter, but you get a fully functional item now